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Friday, August 16, 2013

Another birthday aboard BeBe and Baby's gone home

View from our 2nd-favorite anchorage

Fish! Not many here.

After Frank's birthday we hung around Fethiye for several days, then sailed a day for pleasure and to operate the watermaker. Ended up in a small cove on the southwestern entrance to Sarsala Koyu, the large bay with the red moorings that we enjoyed several weeks earlier. Turned out we very much enjoyed that little cove. It was too small and narrow for most of the tourist gulets to anchor in, so it was pretty much filled with smaller yachts like ours.

This pump out boat roams Skopea Limani. Just call him over
if you need to pump out. No need to return to a marina.

At the end of the bay there was a restaurant with a long dock that went completely across the bay. No electricity or water; just a dock with laid lines making it easy to stop for the night. Dock was free but you were required to eat in the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant would come out in a dinghy to each arriving yacht that was anchoring and taking a stern line ashore. He would tout his restaurant with "very reasonable prices" and many boats would then opt to go to his dock rather than deal with that stern line ashore. Others just thanked him for the information but opted to stay on anchor. He would assist with their stern line ashore and then zoom off to try and catch another customer. As always, click on any image for larger view.We enjoyed swimming almost daily. One day Bill and Elisabeth went to the restaurant to see if anything on the menu tempted them. Nope; just the usual stuff. And the "very reasonable prices" appeared to have about 20TL added per menu entree to cover that free dock. At least it seemed that way to us. Prices averaged about 20TL higher per main course than what we pay at Yacht Classic Hotel in Fethiye; and I am certain that the quality of the food served would not compare. Thanks; but we will stay at anchor and cook on our boat.

One afternoon a boat anchored off our starboard side. I was down below napping and woke up to loud "whoop - whoop - whoop" noises. The boat had one of those large wheels of nylon webbing and had used that to tie off to the bollard ashore. The wind was abeam and that nylon strapping was whipping round and round, making loud 'whoop-whoop' sounds. Extremely annoying. We have the exact same wheel of nylon webbing and don't use it for this same reason. That noise is very irritating. Figure if it irritates us then we should not impose it on others nearby. We often use the spool of nylon web strapping to attach to a bollard when we first anchor; but then we run real stern lines from cleats on each side of our stern to 2 widely-spaced bollards, and remove that nylon strapping and roll it back up. I would not recommend fitting one of these on a boat. We bought it when we first arrived in Turkey. It seemed like a good idea and the nylon strapping is 300 feet long so it allows attaching when must be a long way from shore. But we would never rely on it to hold our boat because you just never know when strong winds might gust down between these high mountains. Give us a couple of good strong ropes instead!

Enjoying pasta & wine in cockpit

I sat in the cockpit giving the people in the other boat annoyed looks when their webbing would whoop extra loudly as the wind gusted. They did not take the hint. I burst out laughing when that nylon strapping snapped loudly during one strong gust. Bill and I had been wondering how long that nylon would take that abuse before it parted. About 4 hours, as it turned out. And when it broke it sounded like a shotgun.

Almost daily swim at 2nd-favorite anchorage

The poor woman on that boat had to swim ashore 6 times before she finally got a real line attached to the bollard and the broken nylon strapping removed. Her 2 teenage daughters appeared useless and her husband didn't seem to know how to handle that charter boat, but mom seemed to know boats. It appeared that the charter company did not equip that boat with long lines and had expected the charter customer to use that nylon strapping all the time for stern line ashore. I think that charter company soon might be re-thinking that policy. Next we went to Tomb Bay. Managed to tie up to the same bollard that we tied to 4 times last summer and already once earlier this summer. This is our favorite anchorage in the Skopea Limani area. Frank and Barbara on S/V Destiny were anchored across the bay. They joined us for a pot-luck dinner aboard S/V BeBe one evening. We enjoyed catching up with them again.

Woke up one morning to see this leaving Fethiye.
In background there is a mosque on right and left.

After about 5 days we sailed back to Fethiye on Monday 12 August. Our transit log (sailing permit) expired on 13 August and we had read that a new transit log could be purchased at ECE Saray Marina for 50 Euro and we could renew it without using an agent. HAH! All of that turned out to be false information. Things change almost daily in Turkey when dealing with officialdom. The clerk at ECE Saray Marina said they do not stock transit logs for foreign flagged private yachts; she had 3 other kinds of transit logs but not the one we required. She also said we would be required to use the services of an agent and gave us directions to 3 agencies that sold transit logs.

High speed ferry between Fethiye and Rhodes. It raises
up on "feet" and goes very smooth and fast.

We found one of the offices and contracted for them to obtain a new transit log for us that day; cost of 300TL (about $156). A new twist is that Turkey now requires proof of competency, basically a drivers license for boats. Bill and I each still have our captains licenses issued by the US Coast Guard, called Merchant Marine licenses; and those were acceptable as proof of competency. Six hours later we had the new transit log, good for one more year of cruising Turkey. That takes care of the paperwork required for the boat for another year; we still need to obtain new residency permits for ourselves to be legal once the initial 90-day visa expires in late September.

BeBe in Turkey on her 12th birthday

Elisabeth celebrated her 12th birthday on the same day we obtained the new transit log. Her only requests for her birthday were french toast for breakfast, a cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake at Yacht Classic Hotel for lunch, and fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp and green peas for dinner, accompanied by chocolate birthday cake. Can you tell her life revolves around her stomach these days! She got all those wishes so she was a happy girl. She is growing up so fast! Hard to believe she is already in her 13th year of life. Lucky girl to have celebrated birthdays aboard S/V BeBe in Bonaire, Australia, Singapore, Greece and twice in Turkey.

BeBe in Bonaire on her 5th birthday

We were supposed to go to Gocek the following day but the work guys weren't quite ready for us, so we moved to a new-to-us anchorage. It was okay and was one of those very rare swing anchorages, but it was exposed to the west so if wind picked up at all we would have had to leave immediately. A calm weather only anchorage which was a good place to stop and cook breakfast. Then we ever-so-slowly sailed in the 2 to 5 knot winds over to Boynuz Buku, another of those rare swing anchorages. This anchorage is very buggy -- lots of mosquitoes because of the 2 small streams that feed into the end of the bay. There is a restaurant and dock located there but not appealing because of all the biting insects. But surely we could deal with the insects for only 1 night; we were going into Gocek marina early the following morning. Sure enough, at dusk the mosquitoes swarmed the cockpit. We hurried below and closed all the hatches; started the generator to charge the batteries for 1 1/2 hours; and turned on the air-conditioning in the main saloon. Then we put on the hatch screens and remained bite-free for the rest of the night. Don't plan on returning to that anchorage. Just is not worth it to deal with all those insects.

Starting up the mast

Yesterday Elisabeth and I flew to Istanbul bright and early. She was flying back to Houston; school starts soon; summer vacation with the grandparents was over. I flew back to Dalaman and arrived back at the boat in Gocek before 7 pm. -- exhausted. Don't know why that day trip to Istanbul wore me out so much; it didn't last summer.

Almost at first spreaders

The day before she flew home Elisabeth insisted on going up the mast to the first spreaders. In summer 2011 she and Zachary both passed a bunch of sailing-related tests and received a Midshipman's Certificate for aboard S/V BeBe.

Very proud she went up the mast

Zachary went up the mast to the first spreader and he received a Midshipman First Class certificate. Elisabeth was terrified of the bosun's seat and started crying when she was only a foot off the deck, so she received only a basic Midshipman certificate. This year she was determined to get a certificate equal to Zachary's -- even if she is terrified of heights. She did it on her last day here. She says next time she is going up to the second spreaders.

1st certificate, but didn't go up the mast

To qualify for these certificates the kids had to pass tests about basic sailing knowledge, navigational lights, cardinal markers, manage the helm under sail and under engine power, read a navigational chart, understand the electronic chart and AIS and vectors of AIS targets, and a number of other sailing-related topics. They both did very well.

Promoted to First Class since she went up the mast

We are berthed once again in Skopea Limani Mega Yacht Marina in Gocek while Emek Marine does some maintenance work on the boat. The new stern arch and solar panels should be installed next Monday/Tuesday. The injectors for the generator were removed, refurbished and new nozzles installed. The generator runs totally smoke-free now. The injectors for the main Yanmar engine have been removed and are also being refurbished and new nozzles being installed. Those should be ready tomorrow. We figured the boat is now 10 1/2 years old and it was time to do those maintenance items. The surprise was that the mixing elbow for the Yanmar engine has a leak and must be replaced. We had replaced the mixing elbow in Phuket in December 2010. Riza at Emek Marine said that his experience is that the mixing elbow on the Yanmar engines need replacing about every 1500 hours of operation. That is about the number of engine hours we have run since Phuket. Rather than replace with the factory Yanmar mixing elbow (about $725), Riza is fabricating a thicker stainless steel mixing elbow which will cost less than half the factory one. We will be the guinea pigs for this new item. Figure it surely will last as long as the Yanmar factory one; after all, 1500 hours is not very long; these should last longer than that. Hope the stainless steel one is better.